Recollections of the Civil War / With the Leaders at Washington and in the Field in the Sixties

by Charles A. Dana

The spirit of the committee seemed to be generally the same as Judge Campbell's, though none of them equalled him in ability and clearness of thought and statement. They were thoroughly conscious that they were beaten, and sincerely anxious to stop all further bloodshed and restore peace, law, and order. This mental condition seemed to me to be very hopeful and encouraging.

One day, after the meeting of this committee, I was in the large room downstairs of the Spotswood Hotel when my name was called, and I turned around to see Andrew Johnson, the new Vice-President of the United States. He took me aside and spoke with great earnestness about the necessity of not taking the Confederates back without some conditions or without some punishment. He insisted that their sins had been enormous, and that if they were let back into the Union without any punishment the effect would be very bad. He said they might be very dangerous in the future. The Vice-President talked to me in this strain for fully twenty minutes, I should think. It was an impassioned, earnest speech that he made to me on the subject of punishing rebels. Finally, when he paused and I got a chance to reply, I said:

"Why, Mr. Johnson, I have no power in this case. Your remarks are very striking, very impressive, and certainly worthy of the most serious consideration, but it does not seem to me necessary that they should be addressed to me. They ought to be addressed to the President and to the members of Congress, to those who have authority in the case, and who will finally have to decide this question which you raise."

"Mr. Dana," said he, "I feel it to be my duty to say these things to every man whom I meet, whom I know to have any influence. Any man whose thoughts are considered by others, or whose judgment is going to weigh in the case, I must speak to, so that the weight of opinion in favor of the view of this question which I offer may possibly become preponderating and decisive."

That was in April. When Mr. Johnson became President, not long after, he soon came to take entirely the view which he condemned so earnestly in this conversation with me.

Toward the end of the first week after we entered Richmond the question about opening the churches on Sunday came up. I asked General Weitzel what he was going to do. He answered that all the places of worship were to be allowed to open on condition that no disloyalty should be uttered, and that the Episcopal clergymen should read the prayer for the President of the United States. But the next day General Shepley, the military governor, came to me to ask that the order might be relaxed so that the clergy should be required only not to pray for Davis. I declined giving any orders, having received none from Washington, and said that Weitzel must act in the matter entirely on his own judgment. Judge Campbell used all his influence with Weitzel and Shepley to get them to consent that a loyal prayer should not be exacted. Weitzel concluded not to give a positive order; his decision was influenced by the examples of New Orleans, Norfolk, and Savannah, where, he said, the requirement had not been at first enforced. In a greater measure, however, his decision was the result of the President's verbal direction to him to "let the people down easy." The churches were all well filled on Sunday, the ladies especially attending in great numbers. The sermons were devout and not political, the city was perfectly quiet, and there was more security for persons and property than had existed in Richmond for many months.

On Monday morning the news of Lee's surrender reached us in Richmond. It produced a deep impression. Even the most intensely partisan women now felt that the defeat was perfect and the rebellion finished, while among the men there was no sentiment but submission to the power of the nation, and a returning hope that their individual property might escape confiscation. They all seemed most keenly alive to this consideration, and men like General Anderson, the proprietor of the Tredegar works, were zealous in their efforts to produce a thorough pacification and save their possessions.

The next morning I received from Mr. Stanton an order to proceed to General Grant's headquarters and furnish from there such details as might be of interest. It was at this time that I had an interesting talk with Grant on the condition of Lee's army and about the men and arms surrendered. He told me that, in the long private interview which he had with Lee at Appomattox, the latter said that he should devote his whole efforts to pacifying the country and bringing the people back to the Union. Lee declared that he had always been for the Union in his own heart, and could find no justification for the politicians who had brought on the war, the origin of which he believed to have been in the folly of extremists on both sides. The war, Lee declared, had left him a poor man, with nothing but what he had upon his person, and his wife would have to provide for herself until he could find some employment.

The officers of Lee's army, Grant said, all seemed to be glad that it was over, and the men still more so than the officers. All were greatly impressed by the generosity of the terms finally granted to them, for at the time of the surrender they were surrounded and escape was impossible. General Grant thought that these terms were of great importance toward securing a thorough peace and undisturbed submission to the Government.

I returned to Washington with General Grant, reaching there the 13th, and taking up my work in the department at once.